The hospitality industry is widely using customer data to develop successful personalized marketing communication. However, in the event of information leakage, personalized advertising may escalate customers’ privacy distress. Building on Conservation of Resources theory, this study proposes three dimensions for privacy threats that impact the relationship between personalized hospitality advertising and consumer responses. Findings from six experiments across high and low involvement hospitality products demonstrate diverging effects of personalized advertising depending on the type of privacy threat communicated. Results further indicate that customers’ psychological comfort mediates the relationship between high-personalized advertising and the customer response to the advertising when privacy threat is high. Additionally, when the perceived severity and distance of the announced privacy threat are high and low respectively, rational appeals generate higher levels of psychological comfort, while the same happens for emotional appeals when the perceived scope of the threat is high. The study concludes with value-adding theoretical and managerial implications for the hospitality industry.

• Adel Hadjiesmaeili(Goodman School of Business, Brock University, Canada)
• Narongsak Thongpapanl(Goodman School of Business, Brock University, Canada)
• Abdul Ashraf(Goodman School of Business, Brock University, Canada)
• Magnus Hultman(Goodman School of Business, Brock University, Canada)